Intel再推低功耗高效能 Silvermont 新軍
為了對抗ARM勢力陣營，Intel可說是在微處理器領域卯足的全力，近日，針對行動裝置設備，發表了全新以22nm製程技術打造的Atom SoC處理器－「Silvermont」，最高可支援8核心，同時採用3D三閘電晶體（Tri-Gate）技術，強調更省電、效能加倍，並且能夠廣泛應用在智慧手機、平板電腦、微型伺服器、入門款電腦、車載影音系統。
新一代的Silvermont微架構與先前Atom處理器相比，在效能提高三倍的情況下功耗部分亦能節省5倍電力，Intel表示，將在2013年年底上市的「Bay Tail」Atom處理器以及「Merrifield」智慧手機平台兩者都是採用全新「Silvermont」微架構技術。
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| 最新進度超前，TSMC 製程提早二年，讓ARM 打中 Intel |
Intel產品長暨執行副總裁Dadi Perlmutter強調，目前採用Silvermont微架構以及Bay Trail與Avoton的22nm SoC，提供給客戶的初步樣本（Tape Out）獲得客戶相當高的評價，未來將會加速發展低功耗的微架構，並且在每一年都會推出最新技術。
另外，Intel也將在今年Computex 2013展公開展出新一代採用22nm Haswell架構的Intel Core處理器，強調內建顯示卡的效能已經能與GeForce GT 650M相抗衡，現在又把目標放的更遠，讓新一代的Haswell（第四代）與桌上電腦之獨立顯卡效能一較高下。
可以看到Intel希望透過Silvermont與Haswell微架構，能在不同應用領域市場帶來良好的使用體驗以及更加的功耗控制。至於「Silvermont」Atom處理器什麼時候問世，目前還沒有確定的上市時程，但相信在強調低功耗高效能的行動處理器戰國時代，勢必只有搶得先機絕不會落人而後。
註：按照 Intel 的說法，Silvermont 的全新架構設計能讓
CPU 運行速度達到現有產品的三倍，而且在某些情況下運算過程中的功耗水平將僅為現有產品的五分之一，而這些改進背後的最大功臣就是 Intel 專為 SoC 產品而設的 22nm 製程及 3D 電晶體。
改抱 Android 英特爾推低價平板
低價平板的魅力讓英特爾及微軟也決定加入此塊市場，預計在今年推出產品。微軟財務長Peter Klein近日在財報會上證實，未來幾個月內將推出小尺寸且低價的Windows 8平板裝置，而英特爾執行長Paul Otellini日前也曾透漏，今年將推出200美元以下的觸控裝置。不過據傳，英特爾的觸控裝置卻不一定採用Windows 8作業系統，而是Android。
目前Windows 8平板電腦或筆電售價大多在600美元以上，讓PC市場在過去一年來苦苦求生，IHS iSuppli分析師Craig Stice指出，其中的一大原因在於PC售價是一台200美元平板電腦的三倍之多，也因此200-300美元的Windows 8設備不無可能。如果PC產業能夠將價格降到200-300美元，將有可能會有優勢，增加需求。
然而，即使微軟調降 Windows 8 及 Office 軟體授權費，200美元以下的價格，將會影響利潤。IDC分析師 Bob O'Donnell 表示，英特爾即將在7月發表一款搭載Atom處理器的Windows 8平板電腦，其售價約為299美元。因此，外傳英特爾最低價的設備將可能運行在非Windows作業系統上，且目前正在推廣Android的變形產品，且包括聯想、HP、東芝、宏碁、華碩等大廠在未來幾個月內都會推出新產品。
不過 Android 中採用英特爾或ARM平台並不完全一樣，一些App必須經過轉換或移植才能在英特爾平台上運行。也因此，相較於ARM，英特爾設備上的APP數量較少，對此英特爾也表示，在去年已有95%的APP能夠兩者兼容。
台積電：加速改變摩爾定律 將推10nm製程
不久前ARM才宣佈與台積電完成首款以16nm FinFET製程技術優化64位元ARMv8處理器系列產品的消息，並且最快在今年內就成正式量產，目前台積電方面也透露將在2015年左右完成以EUV (波長較短的紫外線)為基礎原理的 10nm製成技術，估計將以此加速超越過去摩爾定律所提出硬體進步速率。
根據EE Times網站報導指出，在目前與三星等廠商競爭下，台積電除了稍早與ARM宣佈將完成
以16nm FinFET製程技術優化64位元ARMv8處理器系列產品，並且將在2013年底前開始量產的消息外，目前也透露將在2015年間左右跨入10nm製程技術，同時也說明將強化既有3D晶片堆疊製作技術，並且擴大現有28nm製程產量產能。
台積電創辦人暨執行長張忠謀於近期訪談時表示，估計在7-8年間將會加速從10nm製程跨入小至7nm製程技術的速度，藉此將再讓摩爾定律重新被定義。
另一方面，先前根據Intel所透露旗下產品製程發展藍圖，其中也透露將在2015年之後跨入10nm、7nm或5nm製程里程，在2013年間的產品製程將以14nm為主。
Deep inside Intel's new ARM killer: Silvermont
Intel has released details about its new Silvermont Atom processor microarchitecture, and — on paper, at least – it appears that
Chipzilla has a mobile market winner on its hands.
Yes, yes, we know: you've heard it all before, from
Menlow to Moorestown to
Medfield. Intel has made promise after promise that its next Atom-based platform would be its ticket into the mobile show, but – not to put too fine a point on it – they've failed.
Nimble, snappy, power-miserly chips based on the
ARM architecture – from Qualcomm, Nvidia, Apple, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and others, including possibly your aunt Harriet – have simply eaten Intel's lunch in the mobile space during the long, slow years in which Chipzilla has attempted to move its x86 architecture down into the low-power market.
On Monday, however, the general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, Dadi Perlmutter, and Intel Fellow Belli Kuttanna gathered a group of journalists at their company's
Santa Clara, California, headquarters, and "took the wraps off" Silvermont, the new Atom microarchitecture that they promise will finally allow Intel to crack the low-power chip market in a big way.
This time, it looks like they may very well be telling the truth – that is, of course, if Silvermont will provide a choice of three times the performance or one-fifth the power of the current-generation Atom compute core, as they claim.
And remember, when we say "low-power" market, we're not simply talking about smartphones and tablets – although those hot commodities are clearly key to Silvermont's future. Intel's new Atom compute-core microarchitecture will indeed appear in the Bay Trail platform for tablets ("scheduled for holiday 2013") and the Merrifield platform for smartphones ("scheduled to ship to customers by the end of this year"), but it will also find a home in the Avoton microserver platform and the Rangeley network-equipment platform ("both ... scheduled for the second half of this year"), and an as-yet-unnamed
automotive platform.
In all of these platforms, Silvermont will bring a host of improvements to the Atom's compute-core architecture – an architecture that has remained essentially the same (with tweaks) since it was first announced in 2004. Code-named Bonnell, it shipped in 2008 at 45 nanometers, then was integrated into a system-on-chip, Saltwell, which shipped last year at 32nm.
Before we dig into an explication of the new architecture, we should first offer a word of thanks to the technology that makes it possible: Intel's FinFET wrap-around transistor implementation that it calls
Tri-Gate. When we first wrote about that 22nm transistor technology back in May 2011, we noted that it might be Intel's last, best chance to crack the mobile market.
Now that Intel has created an implementation of the Tri-Gate transistor technology specifically designed for low-power system-on-chip (SoC) use – and not just using the Tri-Gate process it employs for big boys such as Core and Xeon – it's ready to rumble.
Tri-Gate has a number of significant advantages over tried-and-true planar transistors, but the one that's of particular significance to Silvermont is that when it's coupled with clever power management, Tri-Gate can be used to create chips that exhibit an exceptionally wide dynamic range – meaning that they can be turned waaay down to low power when performance needs aren't great, then cranked back up when heavy lifting is required.
This wide dynamic range, Kuttanna said, obviates the need for what ARM has dubbed a big.LITTLE architecture, in which a low-power core handles low-performance tasks, then hands off processing to a more powerful core – or cores – when the need arises for more oomph.
"In our case," he said, "because of the combination of architecture techniques as well as the process technology, we don't really need to do that. We can go up and down the range and cover the entire performance range." In addition, he said, Silvermont doesn't need to crank up its power as high as some of those competitors to achieve the same amount of performance.
Or, as Perlmutter put it more succinctly, "We do big and small in one shot."
Equally important is the fact that a wide dynamic range allows for a seamless transition from low-power, low-performance operation to high-power, high-performance operation without the need to hand off processing between core types. "That requires the state that you have been operating on in one of the cores to be transferred between the two cores," Kuttanna said. "That requires extra time. And the long switching time translates to either a loss in performance ... or it translates to lower battery life."
In addition, with a 22nm Tri-Gate process you can fit a lot of transistors and the features they enable into a small, power-miserly die – but that's so obvious we won't even mention it. Oops. Just did.
Little Atom grows up
But back to the microarchitecture itself. Let's start, as Kuttanna did in his deep-dive technical explanation of Silvermont, with the fact that the new Atom microarchitecture has changed from the in-order execution used in the Bonnell/Saltwell core to an out-of-order execution (OoO), as is used in its more powerful siblings, Core and Xeon, and in most modern microprocessors.
OoO can provide significant performance improvements over in-order execution – and, in a nutshell, here's why. Both in-order and OoO get the instructions that they're tasked with performing in the order that a software compiler has assembled them. An in-order processor takes those instructions and matches them up with the data upon which they will be performed – the operand – and performs whatever task is required.
Unfortunately, that operand is not always close at hand in the processor's cache. It may, for example, be far away in main memory – or even worse, out in virtual memory on a hard drive or SSD. It might also be the result of an earlier instruction that hasn't yet been completed. When that operand is not available, an in-order execution pipeline must wait for it, effectively stalling the entire execution series until that operand is available.
To the rescue – again – comes Intel's 22nm Tri-Gate process. Now that Silvermont has moved to this new process, Intel's engineers decided that they now have the die real estate and power savings to move into the 21st century, and Silvermont will benefit greatly from that decision.
分析
- Intel 22nm 製程及 3D 電晶體將使 Intel CPU 功耗與 ARM 配合 TSMC 新一代製程大力競爭，也就是 22nm 製程 + 3D 電晶體與 TSMC 14nm + ARM 競爭，若 TSMC 贏了，TSMC 及 Samsung 將吃掉 PC、Tablet 及 Smart Phone 整個晶片市場，若 Intel 贏了，頂多 Intel 贏回部份 Tablet 晶片市場，因為 ARM 晶片價格優勢是遠超過 Intel；
- 依 TSMC 製程技術時程，若 14nm 明年量產，ARM CPU 計算能力將 4倍，預估消耗功率將降低 3 ~ 3.8 倍，所以只要 TSMC 14nm 製程技術順利量產，Intel 是一定被打敗，整個 PC、Tablet 及 Smart Phone 晶片市場將是 TSMC 與 Samsung 共同分享的時代；
- 依 TSMC 製程技術時程，若 14nm 明年無法量產，只能讓 20nm TSMC 製程量產，ARM CPU 計算能力將 1.9倍，預估消耗功率將降低 1.6 ~ 1.8 倍，由於 ARM CPU 消耗功率本來就比 Intel CPU 非常多，因此 ARM CPU 仍維持價格及消耗功率優勢，消耗功率優勢與 Intel 之 「Silvermont」將拉近，依 Tablet 平板低價趨勢，Intel 之 「Silvermont」頂多吃到高價 Tablet 平板市場，因此，還是很難反攻。
- Tablet 平板低價趨勢將吃掉 PC 市場，這是 ARM 最大市場優勢的點，將被 Qualcomm、MTK、NVIDIA、Samsung 吃掉整個 Tablet 及 Smart Phone 市場，當一台四核心平板電腦才 89 ~ 99 美元時，我不知道要將 Intel 昂貴的 CPU 放那裡？人們根本不需要 Intel 昂貴的 CPU 之高能計算速度。( 註：Tegra 3 CPU 當年與 Intel Atom 系列 CPU 價格比是 1/4，只有 Intel CPU 1/4 價格，Intel 3D transistor 製程下之電晶體會便宜嗎？答案是 No )。
- 建議 TSMC 及 MTK 大力投資研發，超越 Intel 及其他競爭對手，讓台灣經濟實力大幅上升，TSMC 只要日夜兩班制加速研發一定可以與 Intel 並駕共享整個半導體市場，若忽略研發速度將輸給 Intel 及 Samsung，那會造成整個台灣大衰退，張忠謀就變成台灣最被歷史記載的爛領導。
- 晶圓代工龍頭台積電(2330)28奈米訂單滿手，為支應客戶訂單需求、避免產能短缺事件重演，台積電今年規劃投入90億美元資本支出(CapEx)擴充先進製程產能，同時因台積電蓄意培植台系半導體設備供應鏈、強化對台系供應商的採購量，包括漢微科(3658)、晶圓傳載盒供應商家登(3680)、後段濕製程設備商弘塑(3131)、離子植入機耗材廠翔名(8091)、以及再生晶圓供應商中砂(1560)和辛耘(3583)、材料分析檢測廠閎康(3587)等股本較小的半導體生產設備族群，都被巴克萊點名，將因台積電的採購案佔各公司營收比重高，業績獲28奈米製程演進的支撐，今年營運熱度料將水漲船高。
